


Roads Tangled

by joanses (deerie)



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-03
Updated: 2007-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerie/pseuds/joanses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Go to bed,</i> Stump<i>." Joe stretches out his last name and it turns into a yawn that Patrick quickly mimics. "You look exhausted."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Roads Tangled

**Author's Note:**

> For the February 27, 2007 prompt at we_are_cities.

Patrick doesn't know where they are anymore. The roads have twisted and curved into themselves and Patrick doesn't know up from down.

_You're drowning me!_

He wants to yell it out, but he isn't sure the words would make it past his lips, his throat. The air around him feels dense and constricting and he wonders, briefly, when it got this bad. He doesn't remember ever being so melodramatic; melodrama has _always_ been Pete's forte.

The bus groans and jerks as they hit a pothole and Joe stumbles out of the bunks, eyes still heavy with sleep, looking for the clock. The red digits blink two forty-five pm, but Patrick turns away and rests his head on the cool window. The time has been mocking him since one fifteen pm. The couch shifts and the remnants of sleep heat settle against Patrick's side.

Joe doesn't say anything for awhile, he just burrows into Patrick's side and breathes in through his nose.

"Dude," he finally murmurs, "even Pete's asleep right now."

Patrick has a brief flash of hurt that the world would let _Pete_ sleep now, and not him, but he quickly pushes the thought away. Pete needs the sleep right now, more than he needs his words.

Joe is snuggling closer, and Patrick knows he shouldn't be keeping the other man awake. "Go back to bed, Trohman," he rasps out, wincing at his voice. The window is still cold against his cheek, but he thinks, maybe, that the roads are straightening themselves out in his head.

 

(The sky is parallel to the pavement, now, reaching further than the gritty asphalt would ever hope to reach.)

 

"Go to bed, Stump." Joe stretches out his last name and it turns into a yawn that Patrick quickly mimics. "You look exhausted."

Patrick doesn't bother to hide his agreement. The glass has become an uncomfortable pillow, so he twists around and leans against his band mate. "The roads are tangled."

 

(Last night – mere hours ago – they played a show in Georgia, and tonight they play a show in Florida. He thinks about the kids waiting to see them and sing along with their music. He isn't sure if there is a run-on sentence long enough to express the frantic feeling in his stomach. It's not a bad feeling, he thinks, but it's one he still isn't used to.)

 

Joe leans over and presses a kiss to Patrick's temple and murmurs the words that Pete can't provide right now. _Hey, hey, it's going to be alright, you'll see._ He rests his forehead against Patrick's and Patrick knows Joe isn't as poetic as Pete or as scholarly as Andy, but Joe knows what to say to make things seem alright.

 

(When Patrick mentions the roads at dinner the next night, Pete goes into a long spiel about the sounds of the bus on the road – it's poetic, it always is, but it isn't comforting – and Andy studies him, before turning to distract Pete.

Patrick looks at his hands and decides not to mention the roads again. When he looks up, Joe is looking at him, smiling. _Joe understands the roads_, he realizes, _he understands_.)

 

Joe falls asleep several minutes before Patrick does, but the words he left Patrick still linger with him. As Patrick curls around the pillow in his bunk, he tumbles the words around in his head before finally drifting off to sleep.

 

(_"You can't focus on the roads, Patrick; you have to focus on the people. Otherwise you'll go mad."_)


End file.
